Latin texts, translations and other resources from the Latin Therapy Group at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge

Wednesday, 26 February 2014

Pangolin, Part 2

Here is the second of two translations of texts about the pangolin (you can find the first one here). This one is by Jacobus Bontius. Thanks to Natalie Lawrence for the following introduction to him:

Jacob de Bondt (Jacobus Bontius) was a Dutch East India Company official, living in Java in the early seventeenth century. He produced a great deal of material on the medicines and nature of the region, collected himself and from native informants. The Historia naturalis et medica Indiae orientalis was published posthumously by Willem Piso from de Bondt's previous publications and manuscripts.The pangolin here is obviously an animal that de Bondt encountered himself, because he relies very little on Clusius's description (see Part I), but produces an entirely new one from a specimen he may have possessed. The very strange and boundary-crossing nature of the animal seems to have made it difficult to place in relation to other creatures, it is both a lizard and an anteater, insect and mammal, inscrutably armoured.

As always, we present the Latin first, followed by our translation. Please let us have any comments, suggestions or alternative translations via the comments box below!

The image of the disemboweled Lizard that I show here is of the same species, but not of the same size, as that which produced the pelt that Carolus Cluisus presents in his work on exotics. It is frequent in the woods of the Island of Taiwan [Insulae Tajoán]. Its vernacular name is unknown to us at present, but, lest anything should be unnamed for our ships’ boys, some like to call it the 'Pig' or the 'Devil of Taiwan,' perhaps on account of the wonderful and horrible form of its skin, which it raises when aggravated. The animal is two feet long, of the size of a Fox.

Caption: LACERTUS SQUAMOSUS (Scaly Lizard)

The whole body, from the mouth to the extremities of the tail and feet, is wholly covered with continuous, blackish, rigid, and pointed scales; except the throat, stomach and the lower part of the legs, which are clothed with stiffer hairs like a hare. Here and there on the back these hairs grow from the scales themselves. The magnitude of the scales differs on different parts of the body. Near where each scale emerges it is grooved, and near the end almost smooth.

The tail is very strong, robust and about a foot long, furnished with a more wonderful arrangement of scales than found on the other parts: the form of those which line its flanks is completely unlike that of the rest [of the scales], because they are not flat like the others, they are hollow or concave and turned upwards to cover the flanks of the tail region.

The feet are quite short, roughly the length of a palm. The rear [feet] have five short nails, the front ones have three, which are thick and of a pretty good length, and gently curved, just like [those of] the Brazilian Tamandua [Tamandoá], with which it uncovers the nests of ants and worms and sharply bites whatever prey it finds.

The head and the snout is not swinish, as it is in the Armadillo [Armadilho], but narrower and pointier in the manner of a mole, more suited to overturning soil. When it wants to eat lizards and other insects it lies in wait for them, by which it grows fat. Hence its flesh is not only delicious, but, like those great lizards of Brazil, the Iguana [Leguánae] and Armadillo [Tatu], they are highly prized amongst dishes everywhere by all the natives.